A lot happened to Mika over the last five months. 

First was her Sword Training. She used most of her time adjusting to the strength of her new body. 

Right now, she felt like she could crush anyone without cultivation, which surprised Mika quite a bit. 

The only reason she’s not stronger is that she’s a baby and her body has yet to develop fully. 

Only when she fully matures will her full potential be unleashed.

This didn’t bother Mika, though, since she’s barely gotten used to her current strength. 

Right now, she’s at the Initial-Stage Absolute Sword Body Realm. In this Realm, she doesn’t have to cultivate her body actively. 

If she eats an abnormally large amount of high-nutritional food and practices with her sword daily, her body will naturally advance through the Minor Realms. 

According to the System, if she were to try and cultivate her body any faster, she would ruin her body’s foundation. Mika knew why, but the System gave her a more accurate answer. 

Apparently, her skeletal structure will constantly change as she ages until her body fully matures. 

So, if she were to advance faster in her Body Cultivation than necessary, she might ruin the changes her body will make.

The chances of this happening are pretty low, but Mika didn’t want to take the risk, and it’s not like she’s in a rush to get stronger, either. Slow and steady has always been her mantra.

However, if the abundance of training stimulated her natural growth rate, that’s a different story because she’s not taking specialized body cultivation resources. She’s just working out, and her body is naturally responding.

Mika was enlightened by this revelation and, from that day onward, trained and ate with even more fervor! 

The only times she wasn’t doing basic workouts or practicing with her sword, she was either eating, sleeping, meditating in her [Mind Space], learning how to create her own personalized Cultivation Technique, or… she was taking her Mother’s lessons.

However, to Mika, these weren’t lessons. It was hell!

Elizabeth kept trying to teach her how to bow and curtsy properly. She had to learn the proper words for things and what not to say in front of Nobles. 

For some reason, she kept emphasizing no curse words. Mika didn’t even know why, as she’s never cursed in front of her parents. Only in her mind will she curse! 

Though, if she weren’t around her parents and weren’t in the body of a baby, she would be cursing all the time…

So, it’s not like her Mother is wrong in reminding her, but…

It seems nothing can beat a Mother’s intuition, at least not HER Mother’s.

She even had to learn how to eat properly! She didn’t even know what that meant because she thought she had eaten just fine. She rarely makes a mess and never wastes food. Never! 

She likes to use her hands if possible, but that’s an old habit. She rarely had utensils in her past life, so every time she ate, it was with her hands. 

She tried carrying around a pair of chopsticks, but it was too much work to eat like that. There were many times when she was in a situation that didn’t allow her to sit down and eat her food with chopsticks. 

Over time, this became more of a habit, which stuck with her even after she reincarnated.

Plus, she’s a baby right now. She has the right to eat with her hands and not get punished for it!

Or so she thought, but apparently not. 

Her Mother drilled her on all kinds of etiquette and manners, but most of it just went in one ear and out the other. This shouldn’t have taken Mika more than a month to learn, but she’s had these lessons with her Mother for the past five months! 

Part of it is her unwillingness to learn, but she also deeply dislikes this kind of etiquette. To her, someone isn’t nice because they show a smile to everyone and speak politely. Someone isn’t a good person because they can eat a certain way. 

Also, if there’s one thing she’s learned from these types of gatherings, it’s that Nobles are really good with their words! They can say, “I fucking hate you,” but they’ll switch up the words in a way that it seems as if they like you.

Mika hates that kind of stuff! Just say how you feel! Adults shouldn’t get upset just because someone doesn’t like them. Only children do that!

Today is the last day of her lessons, as tomorrow will be the Third Prince’s Birthday Party. At the end of the class, Mika looked at her Mother and said:

“...I’ll just keep quiet, eat as little as possible, and stay near you.”

“You…! Sigh! What am I going to do with you? This stuff isn’t that hard, and you know it. Why can’t you learn to do it properly?”

“...Because I don’t like it.”

“You’ve said that like a thousand times by now, but this is just how Upper-Class citizens speak, and you would do well to learn it. It may help you sometime in the future.”

“... Then how come I don’t feel like an Upper-Class citizen when I do this? I feel like a maid serving their master.”

“This… You know those are completely different things…! Also, how do you even know what it feels like to be a maid?”

“...I don’t, but they seem oddly similar.”

“Ugh! What did I just say? They are not the same! Not only do maids get their money from us, but their entire job is to do what we say. If we tell them to clean, they clean. If we tell them to take care of you, they take care of you. If we want them to greet guests, they greet the guests. We compensate them for being nice and doing their job.”

“...But I thought it wasn’t our Family’s job to be nice. Isn't it our job to protect the country?”

The two of them bickered for a while until Elizabeth stopped.

“Look, Mika. Some people at this party will take this stuff very seriously and might get offended if you, me, your Father, or your siblings don’t do this. These people might come to try and cause problems with us in the future because of this, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you, so please listen to Mommy. You don’t have to understand why you need to do these things, but please do them. Do it for Mommy, okay?”

“...........Fine, but I want a reward after.”

“Fufu~ That’s good to hear. And what reward does my baby want?”

“...A real sword and some raining dummies to practice on in my training room.”

“Uh… Training dummies, I can do, but I think it’s too soon for you to have a real sword. What do you need a real sword for anyways?”

“...Training.”

“Training, huh… What did I expect you to say? Sigh… Mika, don’t you want to do anything else other than train all day? You should get out and make some friends. Actually, this party might be a great opportunity for you to make some friends.”

“...Hmmmm… Something other than training... Oh! I want to spar!”

Elizabeth almost choked when she heard that answer and began rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“That’s… not what I meant, Mika! That’s just another form of training!”

“...Not if you view it as playing. Olivia does it all the time!”

“That girl!! I’ll be sure to give her a good spanking the next time I see her!”

The two continued bickering back and forth until Mika eventually got tired and fell asleep. Elizabeth scooped her up and smiled, thinking about her conversations with Mika over the last five months.

Although the two often found themselves bickering, Elizabeth enjoyed her conversations with Mika. She’s learned a lot about her daughter through these conversations and often found herself thinking about things she would never have thought about before.

It’s not like her daughter ever said anything revolutionary. No, if there’s one she’s learned about her daughter after all their conversations, Mika is a muscle-brained idiot, to put it bluntly. 

She only ever thinks about training. Aside from training, she is a very crude and blunt person. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll say it to your face. 

To make things worse, whenever she does say something that could be considered harmful, she’s never saying it to make fun of you. She’s being serious, and in her mind, it probably seems like she’s doing you a favor by telling you your faults.

That’s another thing she’s learned about her daughter. Mika is always serious. Not how someone might feel if they felt like someone was always out to get them, but more like she’s honest and doesn’t joke a lot. 

Elizabeth knew that kids are naturally like this because they haven’t quite grasped the concept of lying, but most kids also like to joke around. Mika’s different, though. She can differentiate between truths and lies but rarely initiates a joke or tries to tease someone.

Apparently, Mika finds it dishonorable to tease or joke about someone and doesn’t wish to go against her heart. Whatever that means…

But maybe that’s why she finds talking with Mika so refreshing and exciting. Nobody else will speak to her like that. Not her other kids, husband, subordinates, and even the only person that can order her around, the King, will speak to her like that. 

Everyone has a different reason for being nice to her, and Elizabeth wasn’t bothered by this, but talking with Mika was different. It was pure. 

Elizabeth found all these things about her daughter unique and wanted to understand her more. 

That’s part of why she kept doing these lessons over the past five months instead of stopping them earlier after knowing that Mika wasn’t learning shit in her lessons.

She found her daughter fascinating and felt she could learn something important through those conversations.

Whatever it was that she wanted to learn, only Elizabeth knew…

***

The next day, Mika, her parents, and her siblings were dressed in fancy suits and dresses. 

Her Father and brothers wore black suits with red vests and black pants. It seemed like the men of the Zoller House wore the same thing, as there wasn’t a single thing different about their outfits.

On the other hand, Elizabeth was wearing a long beautiful green dress with golden embroidery and black diamonds across the neck. 

Mika also wore a dress, which was all black to match her eyes. She also wore red shoes to match her hair. 

If Mika had a choice, she would never wear something like this. There was no spot to put her sword! In fact, Mika petitioned to bring her wooden sword with her to this event but was quickly shut down by her parents.

Elizabeth was the one who chose this outfit, and even though Mika would never voluntarily wear such a thing when she saw herself in the mirror, she had to admit that she looked cute.

Mika held onto her Mother’s hands as the family stepped through the mansion's front door. She was a bit nervous because this would be her first time leaving the estate since she came into this world. There are bound to be many new things she’s never seen before, and she might be a little nervous now, but overall she’s excited; Excited at all the possibilities this new life has in store for her!